Celaena wakes in severe pain after the previous day’s uncontrolled shifting and impact with the temple stones. She refuses to use Rowan’s salve because she wants him to see the damage, then finds fresh clothes and cleaned boots outside her room before going to the kitchens before dawn.

In the kitchen, Luca and Emrys are shocked by Celaena’s injuries, but Celaena insists the matter is none of their business. Malakai, Emrys’s mate, also notices the black eye and warns Celaena not to add to Emrys’s burdens, making clear that the demi-Fae at Mistward remain wary of an Adarlanian stranger training with Rowan.

Training is miserable: Rowan makes Celaena sit for hours among the temple ruins and demands that she shift before he will teach her magic. Celaena refuses and cannot make the change happen even when she tries privately, while Rowan dismisses her questions about the creature from the barrows and forces her to endure cold and storm until evening.

That night, hunger drives Celaena back to the kitchen, where the demi-Fae have gathered around the hearth instead of the dining hall. Emrys tells a frightening old tale about wicked faeries, and Celaena realizes such stories may explain why Rowan avoided fires on their journey, though even Rowan did not know what the barrow creature was.

As Celaena prepares to leave, she sees a white-tailed hawk watching from outside and recognizes it as the same hawk that observed her in Varese, understanding at last that it is Rowan’s animal form. When Emrys asks her to share a story from her own lands, Celaena refuses because the legends of Terrasen feel lost to her, and she returns alone to her cold room.